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Opinion Contributor

Is U.S.-China a new Cold War?

The author says the dissident's plight symbolizes the standoff between China, U.S. | AP Photo

By ANDREW PRESTON | 5/2/12 9:52 PM EDT

Chinese human rights dissident Chen Guangcheng now sits in a Beijing hospital room, no longer under American protection after six days of tense negotiations during his stay at the U.S. Embassy. He is now asking to leave China with his family and U.S. officials are seeking to defuse these growing international tensions. How will his plight affect Sino-American relations?

The rise of China and the endurance of U.S. power mean that for the foreseeable future, the world will be dominated by two superpowers with different social, political and cultural systems. As strong as they are, other regional powers — Britain, India, Japan, Brazil and Germany — have to deal with this reality.

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The last time we faced these conditions was in the aftermath of World War II. Then, the Soviet Union and the United States had a vision of what the world should look like to prevent another war — and neither was willing to compromise. The Cold War, a global standoff, lasted over four decades.

Are we headed for another Cold War? Are Beijing and Washington bound for an era of endless conflict just short of actual war? The answers to these questions will largely determine world events for at least the next half-century.

The issue of basic human rights is probably the most sensitive difference between them — and has the greatest potential to spark conflict. There have been several high-profile cases in the recent past, from the Dalai Lama to the artist Ai Weiwei, that have created moral and political flashpoints.

But just as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was set to head to Beijing for delicate strategic and economic talks, a new crisis erupted over activist lawyer Chen. Blind since childhood, Chen improbably escaped house arrest and fled to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he sought asylum.

This proved awkward for all sides. The Chinese government initially refused to comment before decrying any internal interference while U.S. Embassy personnel would neither confirm nor deny that Chen was in their compound. Then, after U.S. officials drove him to a hospital in Beijing, both sides began their ideological sparring.

More than anything else — the occasional saber-rattling, arms buildups or diplomatic spats at the United Nations — Chen’s plight symbolizes the superpower standoff between China and America.

If this seems familiar, it should. Individual human rights cases characterized the Cold War and regularly fueled tensions between Moscow and Washington. How should the Obama administration ultimately handle this and other potentially explosive cases? The Cold War provides some clues.

In December 1948, the Cold War was taking shape but had not yet become a daily fact of geopolitical life. It was, in other words, a moment not unlike our own. The communist regime in Hungary, newly installed and backed by the Soviet Union, arrested Jozsef Mindszenty, a Roman Catholic cardinal.

The Hungarian government didn’t recognize the individual right to religious liberty and banned all religious orders and ceremonies. Mindszenty, already an anti-communist activist, denounced the law. The Hungarian government responded by arresting him, which provoked an uproar in Washington.

If a man as prominent as Mindszenty could be treated so appallingly, what chance did ordinary Hungarians have? How could the U.S. negotiate with such regimes, let alone live peacefully with them?

Mindszenty languished in a Budapest prison until 1956, when an anti-communist uprising toppled the regime and threatened to kick the Soviets out. Mindszenty was immediately released and became a symbol of a new Hungary. Alarmed, the Soviets invaded, crushing the post-communist movement and ousting the government.

The Soviets were also determined to crack down hard on the Catholic Church. But Mindszenty sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy. He remained there for the next 15 years, unable to leave the building and its grounds, a victim of the Cold War. He was finally released, at age 79, in 1971 — not coincidentally, in the era of détente between Moscow and Washington. He spent the remaining few years of his life in exile in Vienna.

Short answer: the U.S. can't afford a cold war with China while we're still paying them back the interest on the Iraq & Afghan wars we fought on borrowed money. Besides, a trade war with China would really mess with Walmart's profit margins!

Post WWII soviets were expansionist. The Soviets were aggressive and militant right up to their collapse

The current mainland Chinese foreign policy seems to fairly accommodate many western capitalist ideas and they have halted the spread of their philosophy by force.

The best thing that happened to Red China was the Hong Kong lease - which out-lasted the old hard line revolutionary communists. Hong Kong, was an incubator for cottage capitalism in that surrounding region.

The new Chinese generation of leaders saw the value of being a world market player, fighting off their passive/ aggressive, isolationist/expansionist cultural tendencies in favor of being a very clever player.